Over-Sized Custom Location Cards

By Sturn, in WFRP House Rules

I'm in the process of making some custom large location cards. These will be printed on cardstock and around the size of a character card or slightly larger. I wanted much larger cards so I could place several stands/figures on them to show everyone at Close range at that location as suggested on these forums by others (a.i. Engaged touching bases, Close on location card, Medium just off of card, other ranges with tracking tokens).

For this purpose, the canon cards were too small and you would need to flip the cards over (removing character stands) to read special abilities of the location. I wanted all of the information and art on the front of the card with enough room to spare for stands. I also wanted to make a library of new generic cards for any location the characters might find themselves - a.i. Light Forest, Deep Forest, Mountain Pass, Forested Stream, Cliff, River with Bridge, Tavern, Village Square, Courtyard, Winding Passageway, Crypt, Small Cave, Cavern, etc, etc.

Does anyone have their own list of new location cards with descriptions and special abilities they would care to share? All I have so far for examples are the 12 in the Core set. I believe the GM Vault has a few more. I don't need the full card and art, just the text as examples for me to create. I will share my own list of location descriptions here for others to critque before final printing on cardstock.

...I didn't mean official releases, I meant fan created location cards.

I went through the component list and it looks like there are tons of extra cards in releases anyhow. Lots to convert to my large card format once I get ahold of them.

This is a great idea! I haven't really used the location cards in play up to this point for this very reason..too small. They're great for referencing additional rules that may come up when/if PCs are in that particular location, but aren't very convenient for encounter purposes.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Below is a link to a couple prototypes. They aren't great looking, but useable.

For graphics I used Google. Most of what I've been using are photographs edited to look a little grainy and converted to "sepia" coloring. This way they will be a little easier on my color printer and all the location cards will tend to look alike.

For sizing it looks like I'm going to print two per page of cardstock. I might be able to fit 4 if I make them a little smaller. Since they are one-sided, I could try to line them up so they are double-sided and get either 4 or 8 locations per sheet.

The cards will have a title and simple description up top along with game effects on the bottom. All on the front so you don't have to remove stands and flip them over to read stuff.

Prototypes

Sturn said:

Below is a link to a couple prototypes. They aren't great looking, but useable.

For graphics I used Google. Most of what I've been using are photographs edited to look a little grainy and converted to "sepia" coloring. This way they will be a little easier on my color printer and all the location cards will tend to look alike.

For sizing it looks like I'm going to print two per page of cardstock. I might be able to fit 4 if I make them a little smaller. Since they are one-sided, I could try to line them up so they are double-sided and get either 4 or 8 locations per sheet.

The cards will have a title and simple description up top along with game effects on the bottom. All on the front so you don't have to remove stands and flip them over to read stuff.

Prototypes

DUDE! These are beautiful! Please do make more! I'll totally replace all my current cards if you go through with this.

GoblynKing said:

DUDE! These are beautiful! Please do make more! I'll totally replace all my current cards if you go through with this.

Thanks. But there is a big but (no pun intended). I can't rightly post all of the official cards in this format (as I get them and create them) for others to grab. FFG would probably be a little angry since some customers might be buying expansions for location cards. What I could do is post any new, original cards I make.

As for new, original cards I'm going to be slow in making these and they won't be replacements, just cards that I think are needed to fill in the gaps. A.i. "Deep Forest", or "Ship's Deck" are cards I don't see in WHFRP's list so I will make my own. I'm waiting to get some of the official cards for more examples on special location rules. I only have the 13 so far.

If you are making your own cards, the Strange Eons program does a MUCH better job. The only reason I didn't use Strange Eons was I would need to learn some of its code in order to put all of the stuff on the front of a single, larger card.

Sturn, great idea.

One suggestion: How about using Hexagons instead squares? That way you could separate easily the ranges. I´m using blank hexagons (about the size of a card) and it works great.

When you say "blank hexagons" do you mean blank (white) hex tiles, or a hex map?

blank hex tiles.

You inspired me to play with some layouts for the same purpose. Also, inspired by Gitzman's use of the actual dice icons for clarity. Any feedback would be most appreciated.

Port Town

So what does this aid tell me an my players? Up top is the location title, in this case a generic Port Town. Moving counter-clockwise. The location has two traits -- it is a town housing a sizable collection of people (Town) and the primary transit to/from the town is by water (Waterway).

Along the bottom are four tidbits. Characters with the Menial or Rural traits gain a Fortune die to all social (blue) action in the town. This trait is copied from the Mining Town location card as I felt it fit.*Next up is a commerce boost for the town. This is applied as an additional Rarity modifier (a boost of 2 Fortune, in this case). Next is the town's crime rating. These modifiers are meant to show how closely the town guard is watching for trouble and how prevalent crime is in the town. This modifier applies to any crimes the players wish to (or accidentally) commit.

Finally, along the right side is ye generic tracker. In practice, I like to have these handy to show how well the general populace thinks of the characters, applying fortune or misfortune accordingly, although it could just as easily track anything else relevant in town ranging from time of day (are the shops open?), to the rebels readiness to overthrow the local lord (talk'em down or rile'em up), to suspicion that the PCs are just a little too nosey.

*In hindsight, I think I will replace Rural with Rogue.

WFRP_AnimalDen.png

Only the GM knows what's really inside, but those two droplets on the upper corner show that your players took a hike to get here (one fatigue as they arrive) and that the chance of something within is a bit unsettling (one stress).

That's a mighty small hole to squeeze through so you better leave your gear outside if you don't want to be stuck, but there's only way to be sure what's in there~

See that Woodlands trait? That means my Wood Elves don'tt need to ask permission to get their Forest Walk and Nature Bond bonuses. Also, it's a cavern. Nothing particularly relevant about that from a mechanical point of view, but it should make the Dwarf feel a little better about camping here for the night.

Speaking of making camp...

WFRP_ForestCamp.png

Once again the Wood Elves don't have to ask, just roll thanks to Woodland trait. Now, camping in the middle of the forest isn't all that safe or comfy, so Recovery rolls are going to suffer a pair of misfortune dice. But any good adventurer will have some Camping/Survival tools to counteract nasty conditions, right? I'm considering adding a tracker to the side of the Campsite cards or some other aid to represent the difficulty of the night's watch -- I left it out initially as such difficulty has more to do with the plot and pacing than the location itself.

===

Compliments to Google image search for images and CS3.Photoshop for compilation.

A few others from my initial run are visible here . I added the stress/fatigue icon idea after a few were already made, and didn't go back to add them.

===

I should also mention that I love having location cards for party travel purposes. I ask the players whom they wish to navigate. That player makes a roll (Nature Lore) if in wilderness. For each success, that player is handed one random card from the location deck. That player gets to choose where the party heads next. That card is revealed and the next scene takes place there. If the party doesn't like the location, they can each spend a Fatigue to march on and force a new navigation roll.

**** great !

right on my to-do list for StrangeEons (i'm actually working on liber fanatica)

I would recommend not using FFG artworks for fatigue/stress and tracks, though, if you wish to avoid any kind of trouble with games workshop

Hurlanc said:

**** great !

right on my to-do list for StrangeEons (i'm actually working on liber fanatica)

I would recommend not using FFG artworks for fatigue/stress and tracks, though, if you wish to avoid any kind of trouble with games workshop

This would be awesome if you mean you will add an ability to make over-sized one-sided location cards in SE like has been discussed above. The only reason I didn't use SE (and tried making my own ugly cards) was I didn't know how to make my own customized SE cards.

These are awesome!! Love the idea. This is something that I would love to see expanded upon and added to something like Liber Fanatica.

I'll second the above suggestions! Would love to see these as a template in Strange Eons AND in the upcoming Liber Fanatica.

Also, to combine a couple of ideas from above, anyone consider adding a small hex grid to the card. It would allow the easy tracking of long and close range within a location without having to use tokens.

Here's a VERY rough concept using one of Amehdaus' cards:

Hex grid large location card

Example: Long range could be represented by having a standee touching the edge of the card, while Extreme range could be represented by being off the card altogether. Medium range could be within three hexes of your opponent and close within two hexes...engaged would of course be touching hexes. OR depending on how large the card and hexes are, all of the ranges could in theory be represented ON the card itself.

I don't know, what do y'all think?

My first instinct with the hexes is to have larger hexes wherein each hex can hold all members of a single engagement and then the additional hex grid shows relative distance amongst engagements.

Something so expansive as a town is the one time when the hex grid is least useful as it is likely broken down into other location cards representing the streets and shops and important sites.

It feels to me, having generic "location" cards such as Stall or Crowd of People or Cover or Alley placed on the field in a map provide a better, more organic environment. By my take, in a fight (when relative distance is most important), there should be 3-5 location cards on the table representing the major focuses of activity with empty "passing lanes" and/or "traveling lanes" between them. With that set-up, standing on card is engaged with the feature, adjacent to card is close to the feature, and the neutral areas are distant by placement.

===

(Personally, I've been doing my best to remove the "tactical" game play provided by grids and hexes. The more the game plays like Heroclix, the worse my particular playgroup with throw all roleplay by the wayside and focus on min-maxing mechanics. It's difficult to relay to my players that they aren't crouched unmoving, but sidling along the well to keep on the opposite side from the moving patrol. Also, it's hard to convert their thinking that their turns aren't a concrete span of time, but are better described as the length of time the camera is following their activities... all issues for a different discussion thread.)

Amehdaus said:

(Personally, I've been doing my best to remove the "tactical" game play provided by grids and hexes. The more the game plays like Heroclix, the worse my particular playgroup with throw all roleplay by the wayside and focus on min-maxing mechanics. It's difficult to relay to my players that they aren't crouched unmoving, but sidling along the well to keep on the opposite side from the moving patrol. Also, it's hard to convert their thinking that their turns aren't a concrete span of time, but are better described as the length of time the camera is following their activities... all issues for a different discussion thread.)

I also would prefer not to have a grid though I understand why some groups would want them.

I understand also why some would want a grid, but I would prefer not to. I like the abstractness of the cards as is. I prefer having touching bases = Engaged, everyone on the card at Close range, those just off the edge of the card at Medium, then you only need to lay down tokens for Long and Extreme. This allows you to specify things like some Goblins that fled off the card to Medium range to the west (left) while some Bandits are coming in from the north (upwards). If you have a grid, its hard to put your bases down for directions from the location.

lets sort this out :

- size of the card ? A4/A5 ?
- title on top
- on the left side, variable number of traits "town, waterway, woodland, mountain ..." i'll set a drop-down with pregen traits and one can set custom traits
- on the right side ?
- bottom : another list of traits (related to career traits) "rural, menial, .." + commerce/crime ? choose dice to add on it
- bottom : add a "special effect" like in animal den ?
- add/remove a grid (hex or square) the grid should cover all card or only a part of it ? (like in goblynking proposal)

I know its just flavor, but if there is any room to place a small bit of fluff descriptive text? I don't think we need a large paragraph like on some of the official cards, but it would be nice to have at least a small description. The official card's text often have clues to the reason behind some of the rules on the card.

Oh and thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this. Just in time before I created too many of my ugly cards. :)

GoblynKing said:

This is a great idea! I haven't really used the location cards in play up to this point for this very reason..too small. They're great for referencing additional rules that may come up when/if PCs are in that particular location, but aren't very convenient for encounter purposes.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Agree 100%. Well, except for the not using in play for the size. In my case, it's future tense :-)

Was also disappointed that the location cards didn't match the locations for the scenario in the Tome of Adventure, but can't have everything!

For me, the size should be around that of character cards, but ideally I'd want to cut away some of the edges to give them shape - natural features like woods might have rounded, cloud-like curves; a castle might have crenelations at the top of the card, etc. But now I'm getting picky.

Hurlanc said:

lets sort this out :

- size of the card ? A4/A5 ?
- title on top
- on the left side, variable number of traits "town, waterway, woodland, mountain ..." i'll set a drop-down with pregen traits and one can set custom traits
- on the right side ?
- bottom : another list of traits (related to career traits) "rural, menial, .." + commerce/crime ? choose dice to add on it
- bottom : add a "special effect" like in animal den ?
- add/remove a grid (hex or square) the grid should cover all card or only a part of it ? (like in goblynking proposal)

- size of the card ? A4/A5 ? Same size as a career card?

-on the right side? How about a variable length tracker like those found on party and nemesis cards?

and my vote would be for a grid(hex or square) that is removable, but when active covers the whole card, though it would sit behind any text or tracker.

Hurlac any progress on this? Don't mean to rush you or anything. gran_risa.gif

working on it atm.

btw, could you send me the individual bits you've drawn (title box, and traits box) so i can use them too

okay first rough draft.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41092887/Strange%20Eons/w3e.seext

implemented stuff :
- portrait
- generic traits to describe your location : The combobox offer premade choices, can write whatever you want. feel free to request adds to the list.
- text to describe whatever you want.
- town-specific traits which will we displayed to on bottom left corner (i changed the layout, but i can easily roll back if you want). I can add items to the dropdown list too.
- commerce/crime rating
- hex/square grid or none. variable size (10>150). i set default size at 60px. I can change default to whatever you want. grid has right now no transparency. tell me if you need some.

to-do list :
- need more appropriate artwork for text boxes
- change the way that tags are replaced, will use actual dice pics
- implementing tracking on right side
- any thoughts ?

Hurlanc said:

okay first rough draft.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41092887/Strange%20Eons/w3e.seext

implemented stuff :
- portrait
- generic traits to describe your location : The combobox offer premade choices, can write whatever you want. feel free to request adds to the list.
- text to describe whatever you want.
- town-specific traits which will we displayed to on bottom left corner (i changed the layout, but i can easily roll back if you want). I can add items to the dropdown list too.
- commerce/crime rating
- hex/square grid or none. variable size (10>150). i set default size at 60px. I can change default to whatever you want. grid has right now no transparency. tell me if you need some.

to-do list :
- need more appropriate artwork for text boxes
- change the way that tags are replaced, will use actual dice pics
- implementing tracking on right side
- any thoughts ?

Awesome work! I do believe I'm going to use this template in just about every part of my next campaign. since they're one sided, these will work great for random encounters in a hex crawl as well.